would have been my heart not to have loved yourself, who are so capable of loving; but (as you must well know) to love two at once is neither fitting nor in one’s power.  It was for that reason I never loved you, baron; I was only touched with compassion for you; and hence the miseries of us all.  Before this day closes, I shall have learnt the taste of death.”  And without further preface she disclosed to him how she and her husband had taken poison.

Prasildo was struck dumb with horror.  He had thought his felicity at hand, and was at the same instant to behold it gone for ever.  She who was rooted in his heart, she who carried his life in her sweet looks, even she was sitting there before him, already, so to speak, dead.

“It has pleased neither Heaven nor you, Tisbina,” exclaimed the unhappy young man, “to put my best feelings to the proof.  Often have two lovers perished for love; the world will now behold a sacrifice of three.  Oh, why did you not make a request to me in your turn, and ask me to free you from your promise?  You say you took pity on me!  Alas, cruel one, confess that you have killed yourself, in order to kill me.  Yet why?  Never did I think of giving you displeasure; and I now do what I would have done at any time to prevent it, I absolve you from your oath.  Stay, or go this instant, as it seems best to you.”

A stronger feeling than compassion moved the heart of Tisbina at these words.  “This indeed,” replied she, “I feel to be noble; and truly could I also now die to save you.  But life is flitting; and how may I prove my regard?”

Prasildo, who had in good earnest resolved that three instead of two should perish, experienced such anguish at the extraordinary position in which he found all three, that even her sweet words came but dimly to his ears.  He stood like a man stupified; then begged of her to give him but one kiss, and so took his leave without further ado, only intimating that her way out of the house lay before her.  As he spake, he removed himself from her sight.

Tisbina reached home.  She found her husband with his head covered up as she left him; but when she recounted what had passed, and the courtesy of Prasildo, and how he had exacted from her but a single kiss, Iroldo got up, and removed the covering from his face, and then clasping his hands, and raising it to heaven, he knelt with grateful humility, and prayed God to give pardon to himself, and reward to his neighbour.  But before he had ended, Tisbina sunk on the floor in a swoon.  Her weaker frame was the first to undergo the effects of what she had taken.  Iroldo felt icy chill to see her, albeit she seemed to sleep sweetly.  Her aspect was not at all like death.  He taxed Heaven with cruelty for treating two loving hearts so hardly, and cried out against Fortune, and life, and Love itself.

Nor was Prasildo happier in his chamber.  He also exclaimed against the bitter tyrant “whom men call Love;” and protested, that he would gladly encounter any fate, to be delivered from the worse evils of his false and cruel ascendency.